Iro Oni[1]
Chapter One: Grey Wolves
By LoveAnimeForever
Shunsui and Juushirou had precious little time together at night, what with Shunsui having to tend to Katen Kyoukoukotsu from seven in the evening till one in the morning every day. To make up for it, while Juushirou was at his flower shop during the day, Shunsui would tag along and nap there. Dinner was had between their jobs, in the five-to-seven dusk window when they were both free. And since Sougyou No Kotowari opened at eleven, it left them the dawn hours to enjoy each other's company.
They weren't married – it was illegal – but it felt like it. Life was comfortable, content; neither could have asked for more.
Midnight. Juushirou was resting at home, which meant Shunsui was tending his bar. (Sometimes his white-haired partner would join him, but not tonight.) Katen Kyoukotsu wasn't a modern bar, wIth pounding music and sleazy customers; his clientele was more conservative, of the class that appreciated mahogany tables and plush chairs under warm light. The cash was good, and the nature of the business made it naturally slow. Just how Shunsui liked it.
A man stepped in – a new face. He was wearing a navy hooded jacket – hood down – over a casual white button-up shirt; long black pants and black Venetian loafers of the same color, but polished to a shine. The man's hair was brown, ending just at his shoulders, and as he came up to the counter, Shunsui could see his blue-steel eyes. All in all a very respectable-looking customer, and – the bartender had to admit – quite handsome. He slid himself into a seat and ordered with surprising decisiveness and detail, even without the menu.
He actually sounded bored. "Yamazaki eighteen-year whisky mizuwari, please. On the rocks."
"You know your liquor, don't you?" Shunsui offered shortly, along with the drink.
"Yeah, I should. I keep Los Lobos across town, after all."
Los Lobos, the most popular place among those who preferred a more… upbeat party. Shunsui had never been there himself, but he'd heard – many times – that there was always a queue at the entrance, weekday or weekend. Well, this was Katen Kyoukotsu, and Shunsui liked her quiet prestige. It wasn't his job to pry into his customers' affairs. He was just a listening ear when alcohol wouldn't do the job. He watched the man take his drink, slowly, deliberately.
"Join me?" he asked, after a few sips and a period of contemplative taking-in of his surroundings.
Shunsui shook his head, "As much as I'd like to…"
"No drinking on the job?" the man asked, light dancing playfully in his grey-tint eyes. He vaulted neatly over the counter (thank goodness all the other customers were at their booths) and landed gracefully just beside Shunsui. He grinned. "Hope you don't mind."
"It's a little late to mind, don't you think?" the other was more amused than displeased, and stepped to the side to let his customer – his fellow bartender – look through the house's liquors.
Said man gave the display behind the bar a once-over, picking up a bottle here and there to examine.
He spoke, almost absently, eyes not even lifting from their inspection of a bottle of Johnnie Walker's Blue Label. "By the way, my name's Coyote Starrk."
"Kyouraku Shunsui," Katen Kyoukotsu's owner replied.
Coyote replaced the bottle in its cradle and turned his gaze on Shunsui. He seemed to inspect him like a bottle of a rare liquor, taking in everything he could lay his eyes on. Brown, wavy hair, tied back in a ponytail; ash-gray eyes. He was in uniform, a neatly pressed white long-sleeve shirt with cuffs under a silky-looking black vest, with a maroon cravat around his neck to suit the elegant renaissance atmosphere of his bar. Eyes travelling downward, Coyote took in the man's black pants and shoes – not very different from his own – then returned his gaze to his eyes. He looks like me. Shunsui had had the same thought on his first survey of his customer, but now that their eyes met, it almost seemed as if there was something more.
A voice called for Shunsui, and both men averted their eyes from each others'. The one turned towards the sound of the voice, and the other returned to searching for a particular something.
"Nanao-chan! You're, um, early?"
The lady, rather petite and dressed in a uniform similar to Shunsui's, adjusted her glasses and replied in a brisk tone, "I always am, Kyouraku," she paused, watching the strangely familiar form behind him, ascertaining she wasn't seeing double. "And who is this?"
Coyote turned, "Coyote Starrk, at your service... Let's see, Nanao-san?"
She was rather taken aback by his charming manners, and that he'd been paying enough attention to catch her name; even Shunsui was surprised. He hadn't thought the man's voice capable of anything but boredom. His normally stoic Nanao-chan blushed slightly in response, bowing stiffly to cover up for it.
"It's very nice to meet you. Are you one of Kyouraku's friends?"
"I will be, soon, if I can find what I'm looking for…" and Coyote turned back to the bottles on the shelves.
Nanao raised an eyebrow, Shunsui blinked. And then, both of them questioned in unison, "Looking for?"
"Ah," Shunsui opened a cupboard under the counter, revealing a mini-fridge – separate from the larger one for his customers – and pulled out a tray of sake and sake dishes. "How'd you know?"
Coyote smiled mysteriously and made to vault over the bar again; Shunsui stopped him with a hand to the wrist he'd place on the countertop for leverage and gestured to the waist-height swing door at the end of the counter. The man's expression was briefly apologetic as he followed Shunsui around the bar and they sat themselves on the stools on its other side. Nanao took her place as bartender, bewildered at their silent communication that seemed too easy to have been between strangers. They both shrugged at her, in sync, and turned to their drinks.
"So, how'd you know?" Shunsui repeated his question as he poured some sake for himself.
"Know what?"
Too laidback to be properly exasperated at his – apparent – drinking buddy, "That I had a secret stash of my own sake somewhere."
"As a bartender, do you really need to ask me that, Shunsui?"
The man had decided to punch straight through at least three layers of formality and called him by his first name. Shunsui was both surprised and pleased; he preferred people to refer to him as freely as possible, after all. Only Nanao and his newest customers called him "Kyouraku" or "Kyouraku-san"; the latter from unfamiliarity and the former from sheer, infuriating determination to be formal. Of course, not all customers were the same, as Coyote had proved tonight.
"Fine, then. Nanao-chan, could you get Coyote another mizuwari? Yamazaki eighteen, on the rocks, ne. His looks too warm by now."
Coyote didn't seem as used to being addressed to casually, but took it in his stride, along with the new mizuwari that Nanao presented him. And although he hadn't really minded his previous one, he passed it to her to clear.
The pair subsided into a companionable silence, with occasional scraps of conversation that was conducted half-internally, as if each were talking with themselves. Coyote's eyes followed Nanao, watching her tend the bar in such an efficient manner it made him wonder that she was actually human. Of course, he'd met his fair share of business-like bartenders; some customers preferred the formality to the familiarity that was obviously Shunsui's strong point. All the same, compared to the lime-haired firecracker that was his apprentice…
"Your apprentice seems so much more docile than my Lilynette," he commented, sipping the amber liquid and letting it slowly burn down his throat. It was his, what, third, by now?
Shunsui tilted his head back and downed his dish of sake in one mouth. "Hm? Oh Nanao-chan's too good to be an apprentice. She studies at the university by day and works here by night." Shunsui glanced over at the girl, but she was tending to customers – safe. He didn't know if she would appreciate him sharing her life story with a stranger. "Your Lilynette?"
Coyote chuckled. "No, I don't lean that way."
It was a rather… different… way of using the phrase.
"Sure, I don't care," Shunsui returned, laughing along with his companion. "You're avoiding the question, though."
A quick roll of his eyes, but in amusement, than annoyance. "Apprentice of sorts. Hence my assumption. Anyway, what about you?"
The man turned to face him, and there was that something again. A glint? The utter same-ness that they shared, the everything that was so similar between them, on the outside as well as on the inside. The penchant for alcohol, the clothes that would've been much more rumpled if they'd had their own way, the same lazy gray eyes that held hidden warmth. It was like looking in a mirror. Albeit a fogged mirror, glass misted over from the steam of a hot shower. And Shunsui finally realized what it was his customer – fellow bartender – friend? more? – was asking. Ah, Juu, forgive me…
"I – am free tonight."
"Wonderful," Coyote murmured, and reached for his wallet.
Shunsui stopped him again, this time with a hand to the other's knee. Considering what he'd just agreed to, he figured it was appropriate.
"On the house," he explained, his smile slightly crooked – the only sign of the alcohol's effects on him.
"A pleasant surprise," Coyote returned, getting up and leading Shunsui along with him. "Shall we go?"
Nanao watched them disappear out the heavy wooden door, walking surprisingly steadily despite the amount of liquor they'd consumed; it was the first time Shunsui had left with a customer, but it wasn't her place to pry, so she let it be. A fleeting thought for Juushirou-san who'd come by quite a few times, and then she pushed it from her mind and didn't give it a second thought.
The pair caught a cab outside Katen, because apparently Coyote's apartment was all the way across town. They passed Los Lobos on the way, and despite the time – forsaken two-a.m. in the morning – the throng Shunsui had heard of was there, though perhaps more subdued because of the time. They continued watching the city's night skyline out the windows of the taxi, the cloying smell of alcohol building up in the heavy yet companionable silence between them. Eventually, Coyote spoke.
"You've got someone waiting at home, don't you?"
There was no uncertainty in his voice, only nonchalant curiosity. The man was sure of himself, or it at least seemed so. Shunsui read him, with that hypnotic telepathy that had enticed him in the first place. Why are you here? Two could play at that game; he watched the streetlights by, leaving incandescent yellow-orange streaks.
"And you? Your Lilynette?"
A moment of silence, then the two turned to face each other and their eyes met.
More similar…
"Than I thought, too," Shunsui finished Coyote's thought, smirking.
The other raised a skeptical eyebrow, but ended up shrugging nonchalantly anyway.
"Pardon the mess," Coyote offered, though it sounded more like an offhand comment than an apology.
He stood aside to let his companion in, then closed the door behind him.
Shunsui shrugged, "Mine is in a neater state only thanks to-"
He cut himself off and shook his head. Now was not the time to think of Juushirou.
"No, tonight you belong to me," Coyote breathed against Shunsui's ear, arms snaking around his waist.
It was six in the morning, with the darkest shades of red fading into the still-black sky. Shunsui blinked himself awake, consciousness slowly bleeding into the warmth that he was wrapped around. It took a while to process that the body he held wasn't the fragile, delicately thin body he was used to, and that there was no silk-smooth angel's hair to nuzzle. Shit. Shunsui stiffened as his memories returned to him, along with a light pounding in his head – not bad enough for him to classify as a hangover, but definitely the aftereffects of the sake last night.
He sat up, but the body didn't pull him back down, as he'd expected it would. He blinked down at what could've passed off as his twin.
"Good morning, Shunsui," the other greeted lazily, stretching languidly. "And what has prompted you to wake at such an ungodly hour for bartenders?"
Shunsui shook his head, got up and dressed. Coyote didn't stop him. Did he want to? Did Shunsui want him to? The guilt weighed him down; weighed him down like chains and water. The easy-going man had never felt so heavy in his life.
To add to it all, Coyote seemed to have read his mind. Again.
"Ah. I see. Well, I won't stop you, since I wouldn't like to be stopped when I've someone waiting for me… Or have we finally found something that makes us different?"
This man has no sense of guilt, Shunsui thought, but there was no accusation in it. "No, I need to get back, like you said."
"You're thinking I'm some sort of uncaring bastard for rubbing it in your face, aren't you," Coyote asked Shunsui's back, as it was covered by the white shirt he'd had the pleasure of tearing off last night. Miraculously, it was still in one piece and unrumpled.
He was met by silence, and the black vest.
"I suppose you're right. I'd be the type to have affairs everywhere, and not care for my boyfriend-"
Shunsui turned around as he tied his cravat, the first frown Coyote had seen of him on his lips. Slightly angry, but not at him – at himself? Contemplative, honestly sad. It morphed into a carefree smile too quickly.
"No, I know myself better than that. If you had someone, Starrk, I'm sure you'd be the most loyal, most devoted, lover any guy would be lucky enough to get."
Coyote was startled by the sudden use of his last name. This man… He didn't want to let go of this connection just yet. He'd promised not to ask for any more, but there was something about Shunsui… Fully dressed, the man had tied his hair and was headed for the bedroom door. Coyote sighed. This was so unlike him.
He got up, threw of a pair of pants – underwear could wait – and followed Shunsui, grabbing a small steel figure from his desk on the way.
"Shunsui, wait," Coyote did his best to keep his voice level, bored – as usual.
Shunsui paused and turned obligingly, an eyebrow raised. "You said you wouldn't hold me?"
The brown hair, the slate eyes. His? Mine? "It's only a momentary delay" – he couldn't help but slip between Shunsui's arms again – "take this, and welcome to Los Lobos at anytime."
He dropped the steel into Shunsui's tentatively opened palm. It was a flat-backed wolf's head turned to the side, with a shaggy mane of fur around it and ending at a point. It was inlaid a black one, from the wolf's lower jaw to the lower part of the mane.
"I… don't understand…?" he blinked confusedly at the figure.
"Primera," Coyote explained, pulling away from the warm back. "Show the bouncers that and they'll let you in immediately."
Shunsui pocketed it, surprisingly happy with the present. Content, even. "Thank you, Starrk."
And he stepped out the front door, and Coyote held it open for him. He found himself talking to the man's back again, that back that was so similar to his.
"…Please, call me Coyote."
Shunsui paused and turned, like he usually never did, and like he'd done so many times in the past twenty-four hours.
"I'll see you around, Coyote."
And he left, into the lightening day; sky, now pink and orange, like the flowers in Juushirou's shop.
Notes:
[1] Iro Oni - A Japanese children's game, somewhat akin to tag. Whoever "it" - the "demon, hence the game's name "color demon" - is calls out a color, and players touching an object of that color become "safe". If all players are "safe", another color is called. If a player is caught before he gets to a "safe" place, he becomes "it", or the "demon".
More importantly, it Iro-Oni is also the name of a part of Katen Kyoukotsu's shikai. Shunsui and his opponent take turns to call out a color, and may only cut that color until the next is called. The greater the amount of the color on the caller's body, the more damage he will deal to his opponent, and the more damage he will take if his opponent lands a hit on him.